


Lost Beneath Twin Suns

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gen, In preparation for upcoming episode Twin Suns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 05:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10269176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: A story sparked by the preview for “Twin Suns” at the end of “Double Agent Droid”'s Rebels Recon.The story that fixes the humongous gap in time between Maul finding out where Obi-Wan is in “Visions and Voices” and then finally bothering to track him down after eight whole episodes of doing... absolutely nothing.He was lost, Forcedammit.





	

 

 

Two suns.

Tatooine.

It only made  _sense_ for it to  _end_ where it  _began._

Maul left the boy to the ghosts and raced for his ship.

He'd looked for hope. Found  _nothing._ He'd needed to see that his efforts to leave an apprentice, a  _legacy,_ would be worth it.

The holocrons had proven that Ezra Bridger wasn't going to salvage the pointlessness of Maul's existence.

Therefore, the boy was meaningless. Let the sisters have him.

_Hope._

It offered up Kenobi.

In this age, killing Kenobi would not give Maul status, or  _anything_ at all. At most, it might draw Vader and Sidious down on his head.

And then he would die, leaving  _nothing_ behind. No  _memory._

There was no hope.

There was only one thing left to do.

Take out the one who had destroyed  _everything_ but Maul's breath.

_There is no hope for me, I have made_ no  _impact on galactic history, no lasting mark—_

_But at least the man responsible will go down_ with  _me in the flames._

It was all he could hope for now.

It took a few hours to reach Tatooine.

Instead of calming down, the fever in his blood raged all the more grim.

He landed his ship in roughly the area he had last time,  _so_ long ago—

Symmetry. Surely Kenobi was somewhere close.

He stepped down the ramp and into the burning heat of the suns.

Oh, darkness and night and spirits of the sisters—

He could  _sense him._

His eyes lit with renewed purpose, a sob escaped his throat, and he charged into the desert for one last blaze of glory.

He would either slay Kenobi, or Kenobi would kill him and put an  _end_ to this wretched futility nightmare.

Hard to lose, with those options.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan bolted to his feet, alarm flooding him as he recognized a malevolent presence reaching out for him. He shuffled to the ancient chest in the corner, fumbling with the catch.

_Breathe, Kenobi,_ he coached himself.

It had been an eternity since his last lightsaber battle.

Hell, it had been an eternity since he last held his blade at  _all._

He didn't know how Maul had found him, but if Maul was here, he might discover Luke.

The boy was sixteen years old. Not  _ready_ , not  _ready—_

Cool metal caressed his burning fingertips—

But the flashes of pain it sent into Obi-Wan's mind alerted him to the fact it was the  _wrong one._ When he touched that saber, he could hear children's screams and a choked,  _“I hate you!”_

Swallowing the pain, he seized the other hilt.

This one had just as much pain wrapped around it, but at least its crystal hadn't been violated. He wasn't sure the stone in Anakin's would ever recover from the horrors it had been forced to partake in. It might scream for all eternity, inaudible, except to someone who had ears to hear and eyes to see its misery.

Damnable eyesight failures. He could have avoided that jolt of grief if he'd just been able to  _see_ the details of the two lying there, side by side. But that was another part of his life that had been slipping away while he was helpless to prevent it.

He straightened, moved to the door, held the saber, and braced himself.

He could sense Maul's fevered delight as he pursued.

With that kind of passion, it wouldn't take long.

He couldn't be far.

Two hours later, Obi-Wan's arms fell to his sides.

Why wasn't he  _here_ yet?

Obi-Wan's own confusion found a mirror in Maul's, echoing from somewhere out there.

_I have to sit down._

There was no way his knees were going to hold out at this rate.

Obi-Wan moved to the tiny kitchenette and put a kettle on to boil. He lowered himself into his chair, wincing against the pain in his fingers, his lower back—

The desert wasn't a kind master.

Neither was a dead Qui-Gon Jinn, oddly enough.

Once the tea had been brewed, Obi-Wan sat in his chair and nursed it.

Then he inched his way through another one.

And a third cup.

And then he couldn't stand the thought of drinking any more tea.

Still no sign of Maul, though he could sense the Zabrak's frustration.

With little else to do, Obi-Wan put a new entry into his journal, a farewell to Luke, any last bits of advice he could think of, and then hid the tiny volume.

He busied himself with cleaning his home, clearing out the sand, placing everything in order. It would be irresponsible to leave it a mess for someone else to clean up. At least now, all they'd have to deal with would be the corpse, blood, and any destruction that might happen in the course of the fight.

Obi-Wan wrinkled his nose. He didn't much care for the thought of his home being trashed by a couple of lightsabers. He'd be dead, so it's not like it would matter, but he'd put a lot of sweat and effort into making this tiny place habitable.

Dusk was drawing close, wrapping the desert in purple.

_For the love of the Force, is he_ walking  _all the way from Mos Eisley?_

It had been  _five hours._ How long was this trek supposed to  _take_ ?

Obi-Wan sensed answering frustration in Maul.

_I haven't gone anywhere,_ Obi-Wan inwardly grumbled.  _You're the one who's taking so long._

It ended with him easing himself down onto the bed. He closed his eyes, his fingers still caressing the lightsaber.

If he woke up in time to escape the initial saber strike Maul would deliver when he arrived, fine.

If not, so be it. He was  _far_ too tired to care.

 

* * *

 

Two days later, Obi-Wan packed supplies into a bag, slung the pack over his back, clipped his saber to his belt, grasped his staff, and set out.

Maul's presence had been fading, a miserable, slowly dying wail.

If someone didn't intervene, the Zabrak was going to die.

The desert had clearly staked its claim.

_Where are you?_ Obi-Wan wondered.

Trusting the Force and his intimate knowledge of the landscape, he searched.

It was late in the night when he found a pathetic dust-covered heap in the sand. Golden eyes blinked up at him, squinting in pain. Fingers reached for him, a tattooed mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Obi-Wan sighed, dropped the pack to the ground, and knelt beside him.

_You were supposed to make this easier, you know. Corner me, force me to fight. Kill me._ Obi-Wan drew one of the canisters of water from the bag, supporting the Zabrak so he wouldn't choke as Obi-Wan held the bottle to his cracked lips.

Maul drank, then stared at Obi-Wan with helpless misery.

_Power and strength make very little headway against a desert,_ Obi-Wan mused. Aloud, he simply asked, “Why didn't you just ask for directions? Anyone could have told you where to find me.”

Defiance glittered up at him.

“I don't suppose Sith stop and ask for directions,” Obi-Wan muttered as he hauled the other man over his shoulders and set himself for the journey home.

Maul extended a hand, trying to call something with the Force—

Obi-Wan looked, found a staff with an ignition switch. “I suppose it's double-bladed again.” He scooped it up and brought it with, since Maul clearly didn't want to leave it. Not to mention it would be trickier to fight if only one of them had a weapon.

If Obi-Wan was too stiff for a saber battle, he was  _certainly_ not ready for a fistfight.  _Couldn't you have come a decade sooner?_

By the time they reached Obi-Wan's home, the Jedi dropped Maul on the bed, and nearly collapsed into the chair.

Sweet  _Force_ was he sore. And beyond exhausted. He'd nearly fallen asleep while still on his feet, out there where the shifting sands made every step take extra effort. Lucky for them both, he hadn't...

But sleep claimed him, almost immediately, as he took the weight from his feet.

 

* * *

 

It took more time to put a man back together than to take him apart.

It was another two days before Maul could sit up on his own.

He hadn't spoken a single word. He'd simply watched Obi-Wan feed him, bandage his wounds, toil over the house and him and make endless pots of tea.

Obi-Wan settled into the familiar pattern of caring for a broken body. It was familiar, soothing.

And maybe, at the end, when they could finally hold lightsabers again, one or the other would find peace.

If they were very lucky...

Maybe both.

Then again, the fire necessary for battle seemed to have gone from them. The original plan might just take too much effort and  _care_ to bother with.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Maul is completely unhinged. We see it in Holocrons of Fate, in Visions and Voices— he has a SHRINE with CANDLES for Satine. He's half sobbing, half laughing about Obi-Wan being alive. Now he knows where he is. Sort of. There's no way he sat around for a couple weeks before going after Obi-Wan just so Ezra could go on a bunch of unrelated missions in between now and then.
> 
> Of course, in this AU, Ezra may finally bother to show up and go, "Mister Kenobi! There's really bad guy comin' to get you--" only to stop in the doorway and see them drinking tea at the table. After all, it is canon that Maul drinks tea.


End file.
